Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/307

 tendant in Liaotung (1617–18). His father, Yen Hsiu-ling 閻修齡, earned a reputation as a literary man and left collections of prose and verse. His mother, née Ting Hsien-yao 丁仙窈, is said to have been an accomplished woman. As a boy, Yen Jo-chü was not particularly brilliant, but at the age of fifteen (sui) he began to show unusual aptitude, and his progress gradually evoked the admiration of local scholars. At the age of twenty-eight (sui) he went to Taiyuan, Shansi, to compete in the public examinations and became a hsiu-ts'ai (1663). Officially he was a resident of Taiyuan, the birthplace of his ancestors, although his family no longer actually lived there. When, the leading scholar of his day, visited Taiyuan in 1672 he consulted Yen about his well-known work, the Jih-chih lu. Yen made several corrections in it which Ku willingly accepted. Having failed in successive examinations for the chü-jên degree, Yen was recommended (1678) to be a candidate for the special examination known as po-hsüeh hung-tz'ŭ, held in 1679, but failed. His reputation, however, did not suffer on that account, for at this time many of the most original minds were unsuccessful in the formal examinations. He so impressed his contemporaries that during his sojourn in Peking he was asked to become the personal literary adviser of. In the years 1682–83 he made a journey to Fukien. In 1686, Hsü was appointed an assistant director-general to edit the topographical work, Ta-Ch'ing i-t'ung chih, and was raised to a director-general in 1687. From 1686 Yen acted as his leading adviser and contributor, and when Hsü returned in 1690 to his native place, Yen accompanied him. For two years he assisted in the compilation of this work in the editorial office which Hsü established privately near Soochow. After Hsü was deprived of his rank, and the editorial office was closed, Yen retired to Huai-an (1692). He lived long enough to be recognized as one of the greatest classicists of his day and was regarded by as one of the six great scholars of the Ch'ing period—a conclusion now generally accepted. His erudition attracted the attention of Margun, the second Prince An (see under ), who invited him to his mansion in Peking early in 1704 and received him with great deference. [Many sources mistakenly assert that the invitation came from, q.v.]. Seriously ill at this time, he died in Peking soon after.

The life of Yen Jo-chü was unusually quiet and uneventful, but it was full of great literary achievements. Most of his works—more than ten in number—are in the field of classical study and historical geography. His most important study, which raised him to the front rank as a critical historian, is his 尚書古文疏證 Shang-shu ku-wên shu-chêng ("Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Shang-shu in Ancient Characters"), 8 chüan, first printed in 1745 but seen by some in manuscript earlier. The so-called ancient text of the Shang-shu, or Shu-ching (i.e. Classic of History), was for a long time one of the most baffling of textual problems. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, or early in the second century B.C., only twenty-nine chapters of this work were preserved. Later, in the reign of Emperor Ching (156–140 B.C.)—according to Wang Ch'ung 王充 —an ancient text was discovered which was written in a much more archaic style of handwriting and contained sixteen more chapters than the version then current. Owing to this difference in script the two versions are distinguished as the ku-wên or "ancient" text, and the chin-wên 今文 or "modern" text. K'ung An-kuo 孔安國, a descendant of Confucius and a professor in the Imperial Academy in the reign of Emperor Wu (140–86 B.C.), was—according to Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien 司馬遷 —the first person to make a study of the ancient classical texts, including the Classic of History. He was followed by many prominent scholars like Chia K'uei 賈逵, Ma Yung 馬融 , Chêng Hsüan (see under ) and others. This ancient text of the History was probably lost, however, during the troubled years following the fall of the Han Dynasty. At least certain great scholars of the Western Chin period (265–317 A.D.), like Tu Yü (see under ), Kuo P'u (see under ) and others, appear not to have seen it. Nevertheless, suddenly, in the period 317–322 A.D., Mei Tsê 梅賾 presented to Emperor Yüan an alleged "ancient text" of the Classic of History with a commentary by K'ung An-kuo. This text came into general use and later was the one used officially in the literary examinations—displacing the one now regarded as authoritative. Even the great commentator, K'ung Ying-ta 孔穎達, descendant of Confucius in the thirty-second degree, took it to be genuine.

In the Sung Dynasty scholars like Wu Yü 909